The roof above the washrooms at the increasingly dilapidated police station finally has collapsed and officers and civilian staff fear for their safety as they work in the 100-year old building.
The local communist party has taken the officers’ plight to Parliament as fears increase that the building is unsafe and could collapse.
The property has never been refurbished and the walls and ceilings are full of cracks, the plaster is hanging off the walls in some rooms and when it rains the roof leaks and water runs down the inside walls.
A Communist Party delegation led by MP Paulo Sá visited the police station last week and found the property in as bad a state as had been described to him.
The Government has said that there is money in the 2015 State Budget to address the situation, but in the meantime the building is in danger of collapse.
Many town and city centre police stations have been closed and sold off, with new purpose-built facilities being erected, conveniently at the edge of town.
The police station in Vila Real de Santo António has remained where it stood 100 years ago and the government seems happy that its budgetary programme takes precedence over the safety of its public servants.
Comments
To allow the finest to rise above the rubbish and give Portugal what it has never yet had - effective policing.
There was a brief move a few years ago to encourage the GNR to retrain as police. Theoretically only needing to start seeing both themselves and Portuguese citizens as part of the fabric of a country; not automatically as enemies of the state.
Perhaps a week or so of initially discussing citizenship and then several days of endlessly writing out "Citizens are not all bad. I was a citizen once, like my family, and when I retire will be again".
But the old Salazarista's obviously fought back - to keep the GNR functioning in its old role of (primarily) 'Guardians of the State's interests'. Not actually crime fighters unless the bad guys threaten the state's security.
So low level crime like druggies and burglaries tend to get little interest - but seizing guns. Like wow - bring it on !
And the GNR - being military - have almost always been kept adequately with new cars, firearms, equipment and premises.